People & Companies

Seattle Magazine's November issue includes its annual list of most influential Seattleites. Alongside names like Governor Jay Inslee and Amazon'sJohn Schoettler is the Low Income Housing Institute'sSharon Lee. The magazine praised her efforts to create both affordable housing and tiny house colonies in Ballard, Interbay, Georgetown and four other locations. Lee told the magazine she wants to have 200 tiny houses in place by the end of this year. Also on the list of honorees is Pike Place Market Authority'sBen Franz-Knight, who oversaw the MarketFront expansion.

The title of CREW's Dec. 14 luncheon talk will be “What's Next for Vulcan Real Estate?,” and everyone in Seattle surely wants to know. Four Vulcan executives will speak on the panel: Kiki Gram,Pearl Leung,Lori Mason Curran and Megan Murphy. It starts at 11:30 a.m. at Motif, 1415 Fifth Ave. Details and registration are at crewnetwork.org.

Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America now has about 20 engineers in its Western Avenue office near the waterfront, but the company said that number will soon grow to around 150. The R&D lab will be headed by veteran local software engineer Mike Dosenbach, formerly of Amazon and Okta, who said in a statement, “We believe Seattle is the right spot to attract the best cloud talent for us. As the first OEM with a lab for cloud development in Seattle, we commit to this area and see the new office as a long-term investment.” The company didn't disclose whether it would expand at its present location or move.